For a democratic and prosperous Pakistan; at peace with its neighbors and itself

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Noreen Bibi, the poor Christian woman on death row for 9 years has left
Pakistan and is in Canada. Even though the Pakistani civilian government and
military establishment appear to be taking credit for her release and for
improving Pakistan’s image in the global arena what is the reality? Did the
security establishment want Bibi released or not?

On a recent television show Orya Maqbool Jaan, Pakistani columnist and talk show analyst with Jihadi leanings who is known for close ties to the deep state, asserted “I met Pakistan Army Chief [Gen Bajwa] during Asia Bibi’s acquittal issue. He said he wanted judges to do same like Afzal Guru case in India who was hanged due to public sentiment. But courts decided in favor of Free Asia poster I saw in Paris.”

Pakistan has had its share of scientists who believe in Djinn
energy and the ability to use
water to run cars, so it comes as no surprise that in a recent speech Prime
Minister Imran Khan declared that Pakistan would “convert spirituality into a
super science.”

In response to Prime Minister Khan’s speech
Pakistani-American geo-scientist Dr Asim Yousafzai has written him an open
letter which is a must read and is copy-pasted below:

“The government of Pakistan’s Twitter account wrote,
“Al-Qadir University would provide both Islamic and scientific education to the
students and help them become morally, intellectually and spiritually
accomplished persons”. Your government’s Information Minister, Firdous Ashiq
Awan, was quoted as saying that “the credit for the unique and creative idea of
Al-Qadir University goes to PM Imran Khan and the First Lady. To make the idea
practical, the PM and First Lady played a personal role”.”

“Mr Khan, your statements are baffling, to say the least.
There is no such thing as ‘super science’, and no one has ever claimed to
convert ‘spirituality’ into super science. Science is based on logical
questioning, critical thinking, experiments, and drawing conclusions from
testable hypotheses. Spirit comes from the Latin word ‘to breathe’ and
‘spirituality’ is based on the inner workings of a human soul. Consequently,
theology and science serve two different domains, and confusing one with the
other can be an explosive mix. Both science and spirituality can have some
overlap, but no one has ever proposed to fuse the two. It appears like you are
conflicted about both science and spirituality. Spirituality (and meditation)
is practiced all over the world, and it appeals to the internal mechanisms of a
human body. Paradoxically, yoga, which is a form of spirituality, is looked
down upon in Pakistan. Spirituality has been reduced to a dogma – a ‘voodoo’ –
where tombs are worshiped, and ‘Najoomi professors’ bring ‘Mehboob’ to your
front door after reading your palm. By providing easy answers and ‘awe
moments’, superstition and pseudoscience has hindered Pakistan’s progress since
its inception in 1947, and you and your government are adding to it, and
abetting it.”

“The world of science has made incredible progress – there
are at least three new experimental frontiers that are being investigated for
integration, to gain perspectives into mind-body interactions: lab experiments
on the origins of life, search for extra-terrestrial intelligence and
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning. Mr Imran Khan, how much is
your country contributing to these highly scientific endeavors? The answer is
zilch. Let’s assume, Mr Khan, that we have taken your proposition of converting
spirituality into ‘super science’ at face value. But how are you going to
achieve it? Pakistan is 117th out of 180 countries in corruption; 150th out of
189 countries in Human Development Index; 800th out of 1000 university
rankings; and 147th in GDP per capita out of 181 countries. In April 2019, your
government slashed higher education funds by 50 percent, thus depriving poor,
but deserving students, of a golden opportunity to receive higher education.
This is an alarming situation. For the sake of argument, let’s also assume that
100 students graduate from Al-Qadir University in the year 2023 with a degree
in ‘Spirituality and Super Science’. Where will they be employed? Pakistan
already has a very high number of unemployed and underemployed graduates, and
adding more to this list would be a disservice to the country you often claim
to love.”

“There is no scientific and technological infrastructure in
the country; the bridge between research and development and the industries was
never developed. Pakistan does not produce any satellite information, and has
only one satellite in geostationary orbit which was launched from a Chinese
platform. Neighboring India has six satellites in orbit, and is planning for a
Mars mission in 2022. The nation would be eternally indebted to you if you
focused on improving the current infrastructure of science and technology in
the country rather than making new, unfounded claims. PM Imran Khan, you also
mentioned that “students will be given financial assistance and scholarships,
quite like Namal University. This will then be extended to other cities and
towns”. How do you know that it will be extended to other cities? Are you or
your wife stakeholders in the project? As a private entity, you or your wife
should not have any stakes in this project.”

“In my opinion, educating students at Al-Qadir University
would be tantamount to dumbing them down – they would neither become good
scientists, nor good yoga instructors. On the contrary, there is a good chance
that these students would end up as confused citizens. At the end, Mr Khan, I
would frankly request you to stop patronizing such dubious projects which are
counterproductive, and will further erode the confidence of the current and
next generation of scientists, doctors, professors, technologists and
engineers. Pakistan is replete with religious seminaries of every color, value
and hue, catering to the needs of every sect and every denomination in the
country. Let the private ownership take care of their own theological needs.”

We have often written about the enforced disappearances and missing persons in Pakistan and the refusal by the deep state and the judiciary to take action on this critical issue. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) issued a statement recently on the recent sit-in by the Shia Missing Persons Relatives Committee that hoped to find out what happened to their family members.

HRCP
expressed support
“for the families of missing persons from Karachi’s Shia community, and
said that, ‘Foremost is the right to due process. While the police have claimed
that five of the missing people were arrested on suspicion of ‘anti-state
activities, the Committee’s rejoinder, that the people in question are innocent
of these charges, must be investigated fairly and transparently.”

HRCP
also expressed alarm
at “the crackdown against relatives of missing persons, in which at least 36
people were arrested on a wide range of charges from ‘rioting’ to ‘waging war
againstPakistan.’ Although many have since been released, these remain absurd
charges, given that the protestors had the right to assemble to demand the
recovery of their loved ones. That this avenue of protest against enforced
disappearances should meet with suspicion and harassment on the part of the
state is a distressing development. Above
all, this still leaves the fate of numerous others from the Shia community –
and indeed, from other communities and regions – unknown. Once again, HRCP
urges the state not to delay the criminalisation of enforced disappearances, to
which it has publicly committed, and to take all civil society stakeholders on
board when doing so.’”

On May 10, 2019, five people including a soldier were killed
after gunmen stormed the Pearl Continental, a five-star luxury hotel, in
Balochistan. According to news
stories the attack killed four hotel employees and a Pakistan Navy soldier
and injured six others, including two army captains, two navy soldiers and two
hotel employees.

In a statement
the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack
referring to it “a practical example of following our founder leader martyr
General Aslam Baloch’s approach of fighting against the occupiers until the
complete liberation of Balochistan.” The BLA also asserted that the attack “was
fully supported by Baloch armed organisations Balochistan Liberation Front and
Baloch Republican Army (Beebarg).”

Further, the statement
said “Our self-sacrificing squad successfully achieved all their targets and
killed dozens of Chinese and military personnel in Gwadar attack today. China
or any other foreign power will not be allowed to exploit the natural resources
of Balochistan and they will be targeted with brute force until and unless they
leave Balochistan and put an end to all their so-called economic and military
endeavours.”

BLA statement also noted:
““Today members of BLA Majeed Brigade broke all security cordons in Gwadar and
fully occupied Pearl Continental Hotel, where we had information that dozens of
Chinese and other foreigners were present. In the battle that lasted for
multiple hours our brave fighters killed scores of foreigners and Pakistani
personnel. Simultaneously, Gwadar port was also attacked with rockets
inflicting heavy losses on it. Our brave fighters occupied the hotel for more
than ten hours. During this time, they did not only fight against the Pakistani
military but also searched each and every room of the hotel and killed scores
of Chinese officials. Pakistani state and its media are once again hiding their
failures by downplaying the number of causalities. However, Baloch fighters
successfully achieved their targets and embraced martyrdom by using their last
bullets on themselves after they run out of ammunition. We have warned China
and other foreign investors multiple times and we want to inform them once
again that Baloch Liberation Army will not accept any so-called economic or
military manoeuvres in Balochistan. No one will be allowed to plunder Baloch
resources and use our coastal line for their military interests. Therefore,
foreign powers particularly China should immediately withdraw from their all
projects in Balochistan. In these circumstances BLA is willing to halt its
actions against Chinese nationals until they fully evacuate. Otherwise, today’s
attack in itself proves that BLA is capable of achieving any target no matter
how heightened Pakistani security cordons are.”

The Chinese embassy in Islamabad
condemned the attack and hailed the “heroic action of Pakistani army
and law enforcement agencies” in a post on Twitter.

The Pakistani Deep State has never been comfortable with
democracy or with civilian politicians who it cannot manage or control.
Pakistan’s First military dictator, General Ayub came up with the Basic
Democracy system in which he tried to replace existing political parties and
leaders with directly elected civilians who would be indebted to the military.
This backfired as in elections people chose the popular civilian leaders, even
when they were forced to run independently.

Decades later General Musharraf came up with another form of
the basic democracy system in which nazims were directly elected. He too sought
to create new political leaders – who would be establishment people and have
little grassroots support. This did not work out either as the existing
political parties in every province retained their support base.

Under Imran Khan once again the military is trying to create
a new form of basic democracy. At a recent press conference Khan
“spoke at length about the newly adopted local government system in Punjab,
which aimed at “taking the government to the people” and announced a two-tiered
election across Punjab. Giving details of the new Punjab Local Government Act
2019, Imran Khan said a direct election would be held in 22,000 village
councils in Punjab, for equal distribution of revenue and indiscriminate
development of the entire province. “People need governance,” Prime Minister
Imran Khan said and added that the new concept was brought to the fore after
lengthy deliberations and study of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa local government
system and similar systems in vogue internationally.”

Further Khan
said ““The city mayors will be directly elected and they will generate
their own money. The tehseel nazim would also be directly elected,” he said,
adding that the new local government system will produce new leadership. The
Local Government Bill 2019 was approved by the Punjab Assembly on April 30
through a majority vote with the opposition boycotting the session. The mayor
will choose his own cabinet, the PM said, saying the mayor of London is
directly elected.”

Pakistan needs an overhaul of the existing system but using
techniques that have failed in the past is not the way out. The way out is more
democracy, more civilian control and less military interference.